cedar strip canoe from the Burly Man Club/Burly Canoes

Well here I see you’ve posted your canoe! Good looking boat! 1.5hrs you say?! Is that after everything is cut and ready to go or??? Also, posted some questions over at your workshop, just before or roughly at the same time that you posted this here as a project. (Some of which you can ignore! – such as length!)

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Beautiful craft there. The feature strip is very cool indeed. Give us more detail on construction. All that in 1.5 hours!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

I think I’m doing this blog thing right. First time blogger. Whoa this is freaky. Regarding the hour and a half on the feature strip: It’s not that I’m trying to go fast, but using a quick little jig on the chop saw, I can make all the little pieces and then it’s just sandwiching the alternating redwood and aspen between two aspen pieces, so yeah, it takes about that long. Then I rip it in half (quarter inch wide) and I end up with two feature strips. I should just make the whole boat out of feature strips.

-- Ryan, Duluth MN, http://www.burlycanoes.com

Ya know, I can’t take the credit for inventing that feature strip. I saw it in a book and it was vaugly explained in “Featherlight boatbuilding” or “Featherweight boatbuilding” something like that.

-- Ryan, Duluth MN, http://www.burlycanoes.com

Hay, Burlyman that is one great looking canoe, I am going to add this to my favorits, I would like to know if you have any advice for me I plan to build a Canoe or Kayak one day. Time and money are the big issues for me the plans to buy are pricie and I think I could probably do it myself with some good research. I like the look that you have here with this Canoe, and I agree with the knots, I love to work with pine and when I clear coat it oh the color the color (from the knots that is).
Great work keep it up.

-- Jeff B.

Great Canoe Ryan. I would love to have one that nice some day.

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

I’m glad your here, these Lumberjocks are going to treat you real good. Great work Ryan.

You should try paste a link, the Duluth Paper had about your canoes.

-- -** You are never to old to set another goal or to dream a new dream ****************** Dick, & Barb Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

Thats a great looking canoe. I’d like to see it done.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Cool project. What recommendations do you have for someone thinking about making a canoe?

My next dream – a strip canoe. Is the Wee Lassie big enough for my Collie dog and I?

-- Bruce from Central New York

I’d love to see a blog on the process Ryan. What a beautiful canoe.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

My son-in-law has been harping on building a cedar canoe for about 4 years now. I’m really glad you showed up. Great litttle boat.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Very nice Ryan. I have always loved wooden boats of all types. The boat is something more if it is made of wood. The look, the feel, how it handles.

I want to make a small sailboat out of wood, but that will have to wait for now. Nice to see someone is making wooden boats.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

my first thought was: you MADE a canoe?? And then I read that you did it in 1.5 hours. That just leaves me shaking my head! WOW.

So… now you need to share the story with us—step by step; caution by caution.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Just to clarify: The feature strip, the redwood and spruce in the picture above, only takes an hour and a half. It can take up to 150 hours to make the canoe. My advice (I can’t believe I’m giving advice) is that you don’t be a perfectionist and just go for it. Get a book, read it a few times, and then do most of what they say. The problem with some of the books is that there are cooler ways to do the same job nowadays. Online searches will give you some people’s little tricks.
Some of mine are: ripping the strips to 3/16 instead of 1/4 so they’ll bend easier, skip the stem pieces like in a kayak, using a paint stripping gun to bend the strips.

-- Ryan, Duluth MN, http://www.burlycanoes.com

why of course that’s what you meant! :)

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Thank you for the advice keep up the good work.

-- Jeff B.

Ryan: this is a great project. Something I would like to build someday. Where do I go for instruction? I have seen the canoes that were made of plywood and then covered with fabric and epoxy, but this strip style is more complicated looking, and something more like I would enjoy building with my kids someday.

Great project,
Mark

-- Mark DeCou - Kansas Flint Hill's Artisan